Practical Magic, a heady blend of ’90s romantic comedy, domestic violence horror, and supernatural trickery, is perhaps best encapsulated by a single moment: “You have the worst taste in men,” Sandra Bullock’s Sally groans as she helps her sister, Gillian (Nicole Kidman), bury the evil ex they’ve killed in the backyard of their magical mansion.
Twenty-five years after the film’s release, its synopsis remains spellbindingly dense. Bullock and Kidman play sisters bound by a curse that befalls any man who falls in love with a woman in their family. After their father perishes and their mother dies of a broken heart, the sisters are raised in an enviable cliffside estate by their wonderfully wicked aunts (Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, in roles originally envisioned for Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Christie). Sally vows to never fall in love, while Gillian flings herself toward romance.
The sisters spend several years apart—Sally marries and has two children (Evan Rachel Wood and Alexandra Artrip) with a man (Mark Feuerstein) whose demise arrives as predicted, and Gillian gets entangled with her abusive boyfriend, Jimmy (Goran Visnjic). The pair kill Jimmy after he attempts to kidnap them, but his spirit lingers, requiring a full-on exorcism. Oh, and things are further complicated by the investigation into Jimmy’s murder by Aidan Quinn’s Gary Hallet, whom Sally discovers she’s falling in love with.
Suffice it to say, the movie is a lot. “I remember Bob Daly, who was co-CEO of Warner Brothers—at our premiere, he sat one row in front [of me],” the film’s director, Griffin Dunne, tells Vanity Fair. “After a very lighthearted scene with girls giggling and being hilarious, [we were] having them dig up a body from a rose bush and stick needles in its eyes. He turned to the person next to him and went, ‘I wish the kid would just pick a tone.’”
Critics tended to agree. Despite opening at number one, the film, adapted from Alice Hoffman’s 1995 novel with a screenplay by Robin Swicord, Akiva Goldsman, and Adam Brooks, was deemed “too scary for children and too childish for adults,” by the likes of Roger Ebert. Entertainment Weekly called it “a witch comedy so slapdash, plodding, and muddled it seems to have had a hex put on it.”
Dunne, son of longtime VF contributor Dominick Dunne and an actor best known for 1985’s After Hours, never helmed another studio film. But in the decades since its release, Practical Magic has morphed into a cult classic, beloved particularly by women for its enviable soundtrack (Faith Hill’s “This Kiss”! Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,”! Two original Stevie Nicks tracks!) and themes of sisterhood. “Dealing with several different tones in the same film is not that unusual anymore,” says Dunne. “When I did American Werewolf in London, it was the same reaction. People were really upset that there were laughs in a horror movie. Now you can’t make a horror movie without getting laughs.”
Fervor around the film gets particularly heightened around Halloween, Dunne says. “A little name-drop here, just two nights ago I was in my local restaurant in the Hudson Valley. Paul Rudd is one of my neighbors, and he came over and said, ‘My son’s girlfriend is obsessed with the movie. Can I bring her over? She wants to just talk to you about it.’ She joined our table and asked me the same questions you’re asking—just devoured every tiny detail about it. That was enormously satisfying.”
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